Herta loving Kirkwood's transformation into an all-around threat

Bryan Herta loves the fact that his driver Kyle Kirkwood has become an all-around threat.

Like all of the best IndyCar drivers, the title-contending Floridian is more than just a specialist with multiple poles and wins on street courses. He just earned his first road course podium at Mid-Ohio, and has an oval win and multiple oval poles — including today’s at Nashville Speedway — to his credit in the No. 27 Andretti Global Honda.

“That's what makes IndyCar great, right?” Herta, Kirkwood's race strategist, told RACER. “It’s the diversity of the tracks. It's hard to be really good at one of the disciplines, but to be good at all of them, there's only a handful of guys that you can put on that list, and Kyle's established himself already as one of those guys. So it's fun because every track we go to, it doesn't matter what type of track it is, we feel like we're going there to compete.”

Herta highlighted Kirkwood’s work ethic and team-building efforts as key reasons for his growth at Andretti Global.

“He's extremely well liked on the team, but he's earned that,” he said. “He works hard. He's often there first waiting outside the engineering trailer when the engineers get here, and the guys see the effort he puts in. He leads by example, and when you’ve got a guy like that putting that kind of work in, and then delivering these kinds of results, it makes it really easy for the rest of the team to rally around him.”